Summer and Winter Meal Planning

Summer and Winter Meal Planning

Through the year I use 2 very distinct kinds of meal planning, summer and winter meal plans. Each season of the year has it’s advantages and disadvantages when it comes to meal planning and of course, I want to make the most with what I have throughout the year!

In this article you will discover both types of meal planning and their perks. I love to use both of these plans along with my Meal Planning Binder. The binder holds the recipes and these plans are the outline!

Once a Week or Summer Meal Planning

Do you like to plan grocery shopping trips around sales?

Do you live in town or close to town?

Do you like to purchase or use seasonal foods?

If you answered yes to any of those question, then Once a Week or Summer Meal Planning might be the best fit for you. The easiest way to start out the Once a Week meal plan is to grab your local Sunday newspaper and flip through the ads. Create meals for the week based on what you can find on sale. If you use coupons, base it off what you can get cheap with coupons that week. Plan your shopping trip on a single day so you only need to make one trip to the store and make sure that you buy everything you need for that week in one shopping trip.

As with any shopping trip, stick to your list and avoid impulse buys. One of the best ways that you can save money by meal planning is to create that list of your meals so you know exactly what to buy. No unnecessary foods added to your cart and hopefully no food wasted at the end of the week.

If you plan on purchasing seasonal foods, make sure to plan your shopping day on a day when the local farmer’s market is open or when you know the grocery store will have the best selection of local or fresh produce.

Once a Week meal planning is a great summer plan if you are like me and are a heavy seasonal meal planner and base many meals off what is fresh from the garden. Once a Week lets you take advantage of seasonal produce and fresh garden produce. If you were to do Once a Month meal planning in the summer, it would be difficult to plan meals around what garden produce you hope to have at the end of the month. With Once a Week meal planning, you can head out to the garden at the beginning of the week, note that you have a lot of zucchini that will need to be used that week, and make sure you adjust your meal plans accordingly.

Once Every Two Weeks or Winter Meal Planning

Do you like buying foods in bulk?

Do you like using pantry staples in your meals?

Do you have half a day you can devote to creating meals every two weeks?

If you answered yes to those questions, then Once Every Two Weeks or Winter meal planning might be the best fit for you. If you love finding deals on food in bulk and you prefer to create meals based on your pantry staples and what you already have on hand, then Once Every Two Weeks works well.

To make this plan work best for you, you will need to start with a good inventory list of what you already have in your pantry, that way you don’t get to a meal day or a baking day and wonder what happened to the last of the oats.

Once Every Two Weeks you will create a meal plan based on both sales and what you have on hand in your pantry. Again, make sure to plan your shopping trip on a single day to save time and gas. This plan allows you flexibility to buy in bulk on your shopping trips for future weeks since you know you will have the room to store it and that you will use it since you based your meals off of your pantry inventory.

The Once Every Two Weeks meal plan works best in the winter, especially if you are a canner. It allows you to base meals off of what you may already have prepared in your pantry and it saves you time and money by allowing you to buy in bulk. It also works better when there are fewer seasonal products to choose from and you are going mostly off of pantry staples.

With the Once Every Two Weeks meal plan, you should try to devote half of a day once during the two weeks to have a baking day. This will allow you to get the bulk of your baking done for the week in a single afternoon.

Merissa

Reader Interactions

Comments

{Kathy} I am more of a weekly meal planner. I have recently gotten into freezer cooking so I depend on those meals for 3 of the days of the week. Then, planning for 4 doesn’t get to be too much. I am finding that the biggest source of struggle for me is not WASTING food. I have recently gone from 4 kids down to 2 because they went away to college. I have to seriously control the amount of food I cook!

I’m learning how to meal plan while living in a new country right now. Ha, it has been an adventure. So thanks for bringing the focus to different types of meal planning. Thanks for linking at Pintastic Pinteresting Party.

I used to be a shop weekly kind of gal, but once I started freezer cooking and buying more things in bulk, I find I go shopping every 2 weeks instead.
Thank you for sharing your tips and printables at the Merry Monday link party!

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Welcome to Little House Living! My name is Merissa and it’s nice to meet you! Here you can learn how to make the most with what you have. Whether that’s learning how to cook from scratch, checking out creative ways to save money, and learn how to live simply. I’m glad you’ve found your way here. Make sure to keep in touch by contacting me with questions and signing up for our newsletters.